UK Set to Overtake Germany's Economy

Posted by on November 7, 2014

According to a recent study taken place by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, (annual world economic league tables), China will overtake the US in 2028, with the UK to overtake Germany around 2030. The UK’s economy will be benefited from population growth, which will put it in a position to overtake France and remove Germany from the top-spot says the CEBR.

Earlier last year, the British Chambers of Commerce predicted that in 2014 the UK economy will surpass its pre-recession peak. Alongside this, the CEBR suggests that the UK economy has the potential to be the second strongest of all the advanced economies in Europe. However, the rate of growth of the UK will still lag behind that of newly developing countries such as India and Brazil.

“Germany is forecast to lose its position as the largest western European economy to the UK around 2030 because of the UK's faster population growth and lesser dependence on the other European economies” says the CEBR.

Despite this, the CEBR forecasts that it will slip back to seventh place in 2023 – 2028 as India and Brazil overtake. However, by 2028, the UK economy is expected to be only 3 percent smaller than the German economy and is likely to overtake Germany to become the largest Western European economy around 2030.

In the past year, there have only been two changes in the top 20 economies of Europe. With Russia overtaking recession-stricken Italy to gain eighth place and Canada overtaking India as a result of the collapse of the rupee to retake its position as the second largest economy in the Commonwealth and tenth largest in the whole world.

As for France, the CEBR said it will be one of the "worst performing" of the Western economies, and will be overtaken by the UK by 2018. This is because of slow growth due to "high taxation" in addition to the general issues of Eurozone economies.The future of the UK economy's position in Europe is certainly looking bright.